Sesame (Sesamum indicum) and moringa (Moringa oleifera) have natural antioxidants that could prevent cancer growth. Previously, this group found that sesame and moringa individually suppress eye tumor grown in the Drosophila melanogaster model. In the present study, combinations of sesame and moringa at different concentrations were included in the D. melanogaster diet. The impact on eye tumor development was assessed at different stages of growth.

Osteosarcoma is a type of bone cancer that affects young adults and children. Early diagnosis of osteosarcoma is crucial to successful treatment. The current methods of diagnosis, which include imaging tests and biopsy, are time consuming and prone to human error. Hence, we used deep learning to extract patterns and detect osteosarcoma from histological images. We hypothesized that the combination of two different technologies (transfer learning and data augmentation) would improve the efficacy of osteosarcoma detection in histological images. The dataset used for the study consisted of histological images for osteosarcoma and was quite imbalanced as it contained very few images with tumors. Since transfer learning uses existing knowledge for the purpose of classification and detection, we hypothesized it would be proficient on such an imbalanced dataset. To further improve our learning, we used data augmentation to include variations in the dataset. We further evaluated the efficacy of different convolutional neural network models on this task. We obtained an accuracy of 91.18% using the transfer learning model MobileNetV2 as the base model with various geometric transformations, outperforming the state-of-the-art convolutional neural network based approach.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is characterized by impulsivity, hyperactivity, and inattention. The authors hypothesized that people with ADHD would display more inattentional blindness in perceptually simple tasks and less inattentional blindness in perceptually complex tasks. The results indicate that there is no significant correlation between ADHD and inattentional blindness in either type of task.

The cause of insect colony collapse disorder (CCD) is still a mystery. In this study, the authors aimed to test the effects of two environmental factors, water vapor and smoke levels, on the social behavior and physical condition of insects. Their findings could help shed light on how changing environmental factors can contribute to CCD.

Did the COVID-19 pandemic and travel restrictions improve air quality? The authors investigate this question in New York City using existing pollution data and forecasting trends.

Since cough syrup and mouthwash are commonly used items and often end up flushed down the drain or toilet, they can eventually find their way into into freshwater waterways which can be harmful to many marine organisms, such as planarians (aquatic flatworms). To investigate the effects of these substances on planarians, the authors considered different concentrations of Listerine mouthwash and Robitussin syrup along with their active ingredients. By using a behavioral assay, they identified that the active ingredients of cough syrup detrimentally affect planarian behavior. They suggest that these findings could be used to guide disposal methods to lessen detrimental effects on aquatic life.

Industrialization has transformed human life and improved it for many. Nonetheless, a side effect has been an increase in chemical waste, which when not disposed of properly, has detrimental effects on surrounding habitats. An increase in ocean acidification could potentially affect many forms of life, disrupting the ecological balance in unforeseeable ways. In this article the authors explore the effect of acidification on corals and shells, and observe that an increase in ocean acidity has a significant effect on corals, but not shells. This illustrates how acidification could negatively affect marine life, and calls our attention to managing the factors that contribute to increasing the pH of the Earth's water bodies.

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is faint electromagnetic radiation left over from early stages in the formation of the universe. In order to analyze the CMB, scientists need to remove from electromagnetic data foreground radiation that contaminates CMB datasets. In this study, students utilize extensive updated datasets to analyze the correlation between CMB maps and Faraday RM and WMAP sky maps.

Bacteria cause tooth decay, plaque, bad breath, and other diseases. Despite being cleaned with water and toothpaste, oral bacteria live on our toothbrushes. Bacterial growth has been shown to be inhibited by different toothpastes and common household spices. This study tested how different toothpastes and common household spices, including cinnamon, cumin, nutmeg, and ground white pepper, can inhibit bacteria from growing on toothbrushes

People are quick to accept the assumption that a light will appear dimmer the farther away they are, citing the inverse square relationship that illuminance obeys as rationale. However, repeated observations of light sources maintaining their brightness over large distances prompted us to explore how the brightness, or perceived illuminance of a light varies with the viewing distance from the object. We hypothesized that since both the illuminance of the light source and image size decrease at the same rate, then the concentration, or intensity of the image remains unchanged, and subsequently the perceived illuminance.